My Chevy Volt Test Drive

The Chevy Volt accelerates better, offers more space, and costs more than you might expect.

Those were my initial impressions of the car in a one-hour test drive last week.

Our chance to test drive the vehicle was courtesy of Brian Fuller, editorial director of the EE Life Community for EE Times. Fuller is taking the $57,000 vehicle around the country and blogging about it on Drive for Innovation, a partnership between Design News parent company UBM Electronics and Avnet Express.

I found the Volt surprising in its luxury and drivability. The cockpit had the feel of a fighter jet, complete with two large touch-screens, and constant performance feedback. The vehicle was eerily quiet (after pressing the ignition button, I still wasn't sure it was running), and it accelerated the way an electric-powered vehicle should, given that powertrain's reputation for high initial torque. Still, the Volt's off-the-line performance feels like a surprise for those of us who've grown up with vehicles employing internal combustion engines.

That's the big difference. Unlike the hybrids we've all come to know, the Volt's wheels are driven by electric power almost 100 percent of the time. The vehicle is, in essence, a series hybrid -- it burns gasoline mainly for the purpose of spinning the generator that recharges the battery.

Our data is still pretty meager, but in the short time UBM has owned the vehicle, it's been offering about 25 to 30 miles per charge. That's slightly lower than the 40-mile figure GM typically quotes, but midsummer driving calls for climate control comforts, which suck the energy from the Volt's 16kWh battery. As a result, our Volt's motor-generator was operating during much of the test drive. (We will provide more data when we get our hands on a Volt for a one-week test.)

The Volt's interior is a good news/bad news story. It's roomier than you might expect, given the fact that the Volt is built on the platform of the sub-compact Chevy Cruze. A tall man can easily sit in back. But the Volt seats only four because its bulky lithium-ion battery takes up the rear-seat center space.

I connected with Fuller amidst his cross-country drive, so our time was short, but it was nevertheless telling. Fuller explained that he's been unable to recharge the Volt's battery because his hotel had no easy way of doing that. He considered running an extension cord out a hotel window but ultimately decided against it.

To be sure, Fuller's dilemma won't be an isolated one. Until more charging infrastructure is available, early adopters are likely to find themselves running on gasoline more than they'd like.

In his limited time with the vehicle, Fuller said he hadn't yet studied the cockpit screens and, as a result, wasn't always sure how to use them. He conceded that he'd had little time with the dashboard but added, "If I had to critique the user interface, I'd say it wasn't particularly intuitive."

While such observations may not be important for everyday drivers and owners of the Volt, they're very relevant for new drivers, and for those who borrow the vehicle.

At this point, the unexpected bonus of the Volt is the minor sense of celebrity it brings to the driver. Fuller noted that when he stopped at a gas station, he noticed another driver using an iPhone to take photos of him. Inside the gas station, someone else stopped him, wanting to talk about the Volt's technology.

"One of the guys approached me and said, 'I haven't seen one of these in the wild yet,' " Fuller explained. "I think it took me 45 minutes to put nine gallons of gas in the car."

(Design News will have a more detailed look at the Volt and its energy usage in a few weeks.)

Your initial impressions have changed my perception (fair or unfair) of the Volt as a first-generation white elephant that's not ready for normal driving by an average driver. It sounds like you had a really positive experience and that the driveability of the Volt is much more refined than I imagined. I'm still concerned about the long-term durability and, of course, the price. However, I am willing to rethink my stance in the face of the information you've provided. I'll be interested to read your forthcoming posts on Volt energy usage.

I didn't realize the Volt burned gas to run a generator. Hmm. I would think that function would -- in time, with engineering advances -- contribute to longer drive time between charges. I'm also curious about the amount of gas consumption goes with a drive between charges.

A cross country drive seems like an unusual test for a car that requires access to a charging outlet. And the price makes it seem they don't really want to sell that many.

I think that until the battery packs can be improved, the electric cars will have limited utility. Given the current state of the art, they should be designed so as to perform that service well. That service being the daily commute (less than 100 miles) of one or two people. A car designed for that service could be made a lot more affordable and still have a luxury look and feel. It would be a small two seater and have a very low curb weight.

At the noted price, someone buying a chevy volt must be a dedicated early adopter. The chevy volt appears to be an attempt at a replacement for the family sedan. As such, it is over priced compared to the alternatives and limited in its utility.

I think the design and engineering are interesting but they have targeted the wrong market. The technology does not suit the application.

When the technology (batteries, controls and charging system) catch up, the family sedan will probably have battery packs built into the structure and utilize individual wheel motors. This frees up considerable space in that the engine compartment disappears altogether along with all the ancillary heating, cooling and transmission components. A battery pack the same size as the comparable fuel tank, but distributed throughout the vehicle structure in a distributed fashion would allow for greater freedom of design and engineering.

A $57,000 price tag puts this in the Tesla category--a vehicle aimed at those who like, and more realistically, can afford--luxury cars. I know former luxury car people who traded down in terms of luxury for the Prius because they liked the "greenie status," but the Prius didn't cost near as much. Is there enough luxury here to make it appealing to the high audience or is there a model with a more palatable sticker price? Seems like it might be stuck in between.

This is to the author: Please get your facts straight. The car is NOT 57,000. The MSRP is $40,280. Even with most options, the car is about $43000.

Now, factor in the $7500 tax credit, the car is $35500 with backup camera, and premium leather and only $32,780 if you get the base model. How in the world did you come up with $57,000? Most dealers are NOT charging over MSRP.

I have owned the Volt for about a month now. I have gone 1000 miles, and used about 3.5 gallons of gas, and about $28 of electricity. I am in no way a hypermiler, and I get about 40-43 miles per charge-- and I'm in Texas! (100F weather recently). Even on gas, I get about 40MPG. I bought my car at MSRP $43,204.

I should also note that I came from an Acura TL which gave me about 21MPG average... The Volt is actually more comfortable and quieter the the TL.

So it seems that old friends are now showing up not for a free meal, but rather a free charge. Sounds like that's what Brian had in mine when he couldn't charge the Volt at his hotel. Why is that a surprise? Half the time I go to a hotel, I can't find an outlet to plug in a laptop or an iron. Can you imagine the fee they would access for charging an electric car? If a phone call is $10.50, than a charge must be about $80.50.

Otherwise, everything looks pretty good about the Volt, except of course for the sticker shock. It's interesting that the Prius seems to have become an everyman's car, but the Volt is still up there in something like EV1 territory.

If the price is closer to $33,000 after the tax credit, the cost vs. performance issue begins to change. Combine that with performance advances -- ala the Pike's Peak race (where an EV came in 20th) -- and we're getting closer to the time when an EV becomes a realistic purchase. With cafe standards going up, and gas prices going up, we may be just a few short years away from an EV as a fair middle-class choice of transportation.

To commenter umo, who had the question about how we paid, we did indeed pay $57,000. We did that to get the car immediately and also to get a red one, which is the color used by our partner Avnet Express in our Drive for Innovation. But umo is correct about the $40k MSRP and $7,500 tax credit, which we should have noted.

Even at $40K when you start to look at ar payments and how much money one really spends on gas and it's tough to make the numbers work out. My car currently gets 28 mph and I drive 80 miles a day. Even with the money I spend I gas, there's just no way with gas prices where they are at that I could make the car pay for itself with the savings in gas. And I think that's where a lot of these cars will fall short. At least until gas rises sgnificantly.

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